Page 15 - The Social Animal
P. 15

Acknowledgments xiii


           ment and updating of this book. It is a pleasure to acknowledge their
           generosity. For this edition, I also want to thank Chuck Schaeffer for
           his helpful suggestions and valuable bibliographic assistance. My deep
           gratitude goes also to Erik Gilg, my editor, and to Maria Vlasak, my
           copy editor, whose painstaking efforts on this tenth edition made it a
           pleasure to revise.
               There is a sense in which this book is a family enterprise. This
           has been especially true during the past two decades when I have ex-
           perienced the singular gratification of being deeply influenced by my
           grown children—each in his and her own fashion. My youngest son,
           Joshua Aronson (a brilliant experimental social psychologist in his
           own right), takes great delight in trying to keep me on my toes re-
           garding recent methodological and theoretical innovations. More
           specifically, he has provided me with invaluable insights and sugges-
           tions about changes to be made in both the ninth and the tenth edi-
           tions of this book and has done some of the writing and integrating
           of the new material. My eldest son, Hal Aronson (an environmental
           sociologist), helps to keep my focus broader than the confines of the
           laboratory. And my middle children, Neal Aronson (a firefighter for
           the city of Santa Cruz) and Julie Aronson (an educational researcher
           and evaluator), toil in the trenches of human service on a day-to-day
           basis, reminding me by their example that, ultimately, social psychol-
           ogy must strive to be useful to people in their daily lives.
               Finally, as you may have noticed, the dedication of this book
           reads, “To Vera, of course.” The Vera in question is Vera Aronson,
           who has been my best friend and favorite consultant for more than
           fifty years and who (to my great good fortune) also happens to be my
           wife. To anyone who knows us well, the phrase, “of course” in the
           dedication is redundant. And, because redundancy is an occupational
           hazard in the teaching game, I must admit (with a blush) that it is
           almost certainly not the last redundancy you will need to put up with.


                                                          Elliot Aronson
                                                            March 2007
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